Maze prison to be site for new national stadium
The site of the former Maze Prison is the only place for a new national sports stadium for Northern Ireland, the British government insisted today.
Opponents say the stadium should be built in Belfast, but ministers have opted for the disused prison more than a dozen miles from the city centre and outside Lisburn, Co Antrim.
As the wraps finally came off the masterplan, Belfast City Council said it would end up as an expensive white elephant and the council would now press ahead with its own plans for a stadium in the city.
David Hanson, the Northern Ireland Office minister responsible for the Maze project, said all three sports that would use the stadium – rugby, football and GAA – were behind the proposal.
The 42,000-seater stadium would be the centre piece of a redevelopment of the 360-acre former prison and army site.
Mr Hanson said the proposals represented a fantastic opportunity to showcase all that is best in Northern Ireland in terms of regeneration, sharing the future and conflict transformation.
“The opportunity now exists to turn security and military assets so long associated with conflict into symbols and engines of economic and social regeneration, renewal and growth,” he said during the masterplan launch.
The stadium is only a small part of the development envisaged by the masterplan which includes an International Centre for Conflict Transformation in part of the prison where IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands became the first of ten republicans to starve themselves to death in 1981.
But the stadium is central to the whole project and Mr Hanson launched a design competition for it.
The GAA, football and rugby ruling bodies have all nominated representatives to set on a design Steering Group, he revealed.
Dismissing opponents to the idea of putting the stadium outside Belfast, Mr Hanson said: “This is the only site that can attract all three sports required to make a stadium operationally viable.”
He told a news conference at the Maze: “I think it is now time for Northern Ireland to get behind this project, a project for all of Northern Ireland but also a project that will make a significant contribution to the continued success of the region’s capital city, Belfast.”
The stadium will be used for sporting events as well as concerts and other large events. It will contain a hotel, conference facilities, leisure and entertainment outlets including bars, cafes, restaurants, specialist retail outlets, multi-screen cinema and a possible ice rink.
A new junction on the M1 motorway and link road have been incorporated into the proposals in a bid to overcome reservations about the site – as have plans for a park-and-ride scheme and new railway station.
The conflict transformation centre was critical in getting Sinn Féin behind the masterplan and its representatives lined up with the other main parties to endorse the scheme today.
Mr Hanson said: “This particular initiative lies at the heart of what the transformation is about – learning not just locally and regionally but internationally, about our experience here of the move from conflict into peace.”
Employment space and a Rural Excellence and Innovation Zone including an exhibition centre, showgrounds and potentially a equestrian centre are in the masterplan as well as housing.
Former Belfast Lord Mayor Bob Stoker, chairman of the council’s Community and Recreation Committee, blasted the minister’s announcment and said it would make no difference to its own plans for a 25,000-seater stadium.
“The fact is all the evidence from around the world shows that stadia should be built in major cities, such as the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Croke Park in Dublin and the new Wembley in London.
“Stadia outside cities are not economically viable.”
Mr Stoker added: “There is a groundswell of opinion rising up against the Maze project. If it goes ahead it will end up a white elephant that will take a generation to be paid for by the people of Northern Ireland.”
The councillor demanded to know where the government would find the £85m to build the Maze stadium at a time when it was putting up rates to meet infrastructure and service needs.
The Belfast council, he said, had identified three potential city stadium sites and was in the process of issuing development briefs for those interested in taking the project forward.
The Northern Ireland Tourist Board has leaned towards a Belfast site while insisting it had expressed no preference in promoting specific sites.
A spokesman said it had “highlighted that the application of criteria aligned to tourism and related economic development priorities tends to favour city centre locations which are well supported with accommodation, restaurants, transportation networks and other amenities.”
